Okay for starters, check this video out.  It's a commercial that talks about the dangers of drunk driving.  I think you guys will enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RDLnj1iTpk

Wow it's been long time since I've written something!  Since Nelson, we've been to Kaikaura, Christchurch, back up to Auckland, Whitianga, and now we're in Tauranga.  So, I'll tell you a little bit about each.

 

From Nelson we went down to Kaikura, which is a little town where you can go whale watching (for sperm whales, apparently they live off the coast here) and walk to a seal colony.  We skipped the whale watching because the ocean was crazy rough and it cost waaaay too much to do something we've already done (Hawaii, thank you).  So instead we hung out at our hotel, seeing as how there's not much else to do, and had an AMAZING crayfish (lobster) dinner.  Like AMAZING.  Seriously.  The lobster was probably as big as my torso.  We split it between the four of us and it was super yummy ( :  The next day we went to the seal colony and saw some pretty cool seals (and a bunch of babies!).  Oh and on the way to Kaikura we also saw some seals like 4 feet from the road just chilling, and a bunch of baby seals down farther playing in pools and sliding and being adorable.  Anyway, the mountains at Kaikura were not showing because it was all cloudy, which was really disappointing.  After the seal colony we had a disappointing abalone burger thing, then left and headed to Christchurch.

 

The road from Kaikura to Christchurch, of course, was beautiful, and Christchurch was pretty awesome as well.  Unfortunately I caught a cold while down there, so that was kinda lame.  The first night we got there we went out to the this Souvlaki place and had kebabs, but not really 'cause it was more a platter without the pita bread wrapped around it so yeah.....  Anyway, the chicken here, I don't think it gets much better than this chicken.  It was crazy delicious.  Dinner was sooo good that night.  The next day we switched motels to this nice one over in Riccarton, then went to this old mansion thing that had "the Bush" and a stream next to it.  While my parents were checking out the house and Brad was reading, I decided I'd go sit down by the stream where a bench was and ducks.  It had just rained, so I brought my poncho with me and was seriously two feet away from the bench when WHAM!  FALL NUMBER THREE!  Awesome, right?  Yeah, totally bitchin' (but not so much).  So, I finally had fall number three.  But apparently the bush was cool (they preserved it and nothing had been cut down since settlers came, so it was basically what New Zealand looked like before settlers, which is apparently crazy), so my parents had a good time.  We then went to the Botanical Gardens, where my parents and I walked around while Brad went downtown to check out a record store.  The Botanic Gardens were pretty sweet, they had this huge greenhouse that had some amazing plants (and sooo many orchids, Ean!), and these really cute displays for kids that I thought were great.  We then walked around and checked out the ducks, swans, and birds around a bond, then went and waited in the car for Brad (we barely made it out of the park before the locked the gates—our car woulda been locked in for the night!).  For dinner we went to a “secret pizza place” my parents found, but it turned out to be the same place we went to while in Auckland, hah, either way it was delicious!  That night I FINALLY learned how to play poker (betting noodles), it was great but I definitely didn’t win; my advice, don’t always try to go for flushes, that’s dumb.  The next day we went to some museums and art galleries, which were fun, then decided to book a flight up to Auckland for the next day.  All in all, Christchurch is a really beautiful place, but we went there during a school holiday so no students were really there and I guess I didn’t get the full view (plus, I was sick, lame).

 

Auckland was our next stop, and after a plane ride with beauuuuuuutiful views of the country (it was clear that day!) we ended up lost on our way from the rental car place to the YHA, during rush hour.  Finally we got there, hung out, then headed out for dinner.  We stopped by this pharmacy and picked up NZ’s equivalent to Nyquil, where the pharmacy’s owner assured me I didn’t have swine flu (definitely a relief) then recommended we go to Satya, an South Indian food restaurant just down the street.  We walked down there and immediately got a table, which was great ‘cause right after we came the place didn’t have a table open, it was amazing.  BUT OH MY GOSH!!  Seriously, this was by FAR the absolute BEST Indian food I’ve ever had, and brad said it was in his top three favorite places.  OH MY GOSH.  Again, AMAZING.  Like totally out of sight how amazing this stuff was.  Brad had this crazy awesome spicy dry curry chicken dish, Mom had an awesome dola (? Pretty sure that’s wrong) thing, which was more or less a giant samosa, Dad had chicken tikka masala (Ean, seriously the most amazing thing ever) and I had chicken korma, which was INCREDIBLE!!  Okkay okay okay I’ll stop about the Indian food (AMAZING! Haha).  The next day we tried to find an observatory, which definitely didn’t happen, so we checked out Auckland’s indoor winter garden, which was fun.  That night Brad and I went out to this pub that had nobody in it, then the bartender’s friend came, then another friend, then this couple from NZ.  They all ended up sitting with us and we did some drinking and talking and it was pretty sweet, everyone was really nice and we had fun.  We got back to the hostel and I got my water bottle from my parents room (it was like 1a, I was definitely drunk), then Brad and I went to our room and played music from his laptop as loud as possible, and apparently I sang and danced.  I guess our neighbors were pissed (Brad told me when he came back from the bathroom), so I decided it’d be a good idea to hit my metal water bottle up against their wall.  Whateeeeever.  The next day was pretttttty lame, and Brad and I mostly slept.  The next day we headed out to Bay of Plenty and stayed in Whitianga for the next couple of days.  We tried to go to Hot Water Beach, but that didn’t work out so well because the waves were way to big and the low tide wasn’t very low.  The second day Brad and I went out to lunch and ended up at this Chinese food place, which was the worst food I’ve ever tasted.  That place is dead to us, we don’t talk about it.  Then we went and got a caramel milkshake and some fries and a fried chicken butt (that’s what mom said), so we ended up not eating the chicken.  The rest of the day we hung out, went to dinner (which was pretty meh, and the waitress was all dumb), and the next day (which is today!) we looked for some greenstone, then left.  Now we’re in Tauranga, which is a decent-sized city.  We’re about to go out to dinner, so Ima bail.  I hope everything’s going well over there, and I miss you all.  I’m sorry this is so long, but apparently that’s just how it is, so get used to it, haha.  Hope you have a good day.